Car recommendations...

[LondonQueen]

The car topic is back! (Yay). DH and I are looking for an additional car with a budget of about £5k.
Ideally I'd like:
• Reliable.
• Can comfortably fit two children in car seats
• Affordable insurance wise.
• Enough power to join the motorway and navigate country roads.

• A boot big enough to fit some shopping etc in.
• Automatic transmission would be preferred but we can drive manual if it will save us a decent chunk of money.
What cars have you got that are around 5k?

Vauxhall zafira. It's not the nicest looking or to drive if you're a car nerd, but it is affordable and parts are cheap. And the boot is huge.

Skoda Fabia? We've had a couple over the years, and they've always been reliable.
The 1.2 is available as an automatic, and £5000 would probably get you a 2011/2012 model.

I've just had a look at the Zafira, unfortunately the insurance is £££! It looks like it would be a great contender if not.

I shall have a further look at these, they look like they would suit us well for the use of the car.

Polo.

Not sure about prices, but Honda Jazz ought to fulfill the other criteria. It's been around for decades so I would imagine there must be some available for £5K.

Honda Jazz. I'm on my second one of these. Bought an 11 plate for £5k last year. The reason I started buying the Jazz is that it came out best in a survey of the used cars least likely to need a lot of repairs.

It's a small car but the boot is very spacious compared to other small cars. Easily fit two high quality bulky high backed boosters in the back. Only thing is that 'buckle crunch' can be an issue so you have to be a bit careful when installing the seats to not have the buckles pressing on the plastic of the booster.

I do a lot of motorway driving and although acceleration is a tad more sluggish than I'd choose it's actually pretty good and will happily zip up the length of the M1 at speed. Road handling is good on country roads and handles little Northumbrian country roads absolutely fine.

I can absolutely recommend Honda jazz. If it’s for local runaround with the occasional longer trip I think it’s pretty unbeatable.

The Interior space is fantastic and you can get so much in it with the seats folded down for a trip to the tip. They go for ages, mine is nearly 17 years old and all I’ve ever had to do on it is routine maintenance. Not a single major issue. Tyres, brake consumables, CVT fluid change, spark plugs, a suspension joint at £50 or something. That’s it: it even has its original ignition coils, which still keep on keeping on.

honestly it’s so well-designed. only getting rid as I will need to do several 700k+ one way journeys a year now and I need something reliable and breakdown- insurable in the EU.